Holly Lester by Andrew Rosenheim Page A

Holly briefly dated a fellow student), before joining McKinsey at the ripe age of twenty-three. She married Harry two years later, and they bought their house in the then-raffish Primrose Hill. Their youthful social circle included Philip Larches, now tipped to be Attorney General but then a mere apprentice barrister; Willie Erdman, television executive (what
did
that mean precisely? Billings wondered), then a trainee at the BBC; and – Holly interrupted: ‘My second job, you’ll be interested to know, was as a cocktail waitress in a louche bar in the middle of town. I was under age and paid strictly in cash.’
    â€˜Your mother let you?’
    â€˜No. She couldn’t stop me, which is different. She was working all hours herself, she couldn’t be expected to control a pig-headed girl like me.’
    â€˜Were you very wild?’
    She shrugged. ‘Not really; it just looked that way. I had a boyfriend named Stanley Hooperton. He drove an old Harley Davidson and wore leathers – very exciting. He once tried to have it off with me on his bike and almost broke his willy in half. He was a big bloke, young Stanley, and he could look very frightening. But he was a softie, really. His dad was a dentist in Eastbourne.’
    The article made much of her mother; deserted by the boozy playwright while Holly was still a tot, she’d scraped and saved – both to bring her daughter up ‘right’ and, in the modern fashion, to further her own career. She had been a mother’s help, a waitress, a secretary, a shop assistant and, finally, a psychiatric social worker, a fully qualified member of the helping rather than the helped.
    â€˜What’s a psychiatric social worker?’
    â€˜Ah, you’re reading about my mum. She’s a psychotherapist for the state, who only does house calls.’
    â€˜Were you an only child?’
    She looked warily at him, then shook her head. ‘No. I’ve got a younger brother.’
    â€˜What happened to him?’
    â€˜He lives in America and does drugs,’ said Holly without missing a beat.
    Billings was surprised. ‘Golly. That would make the news.’
    She looked away and nibbled a fingernail. ‘We’re hoping they won’t find him – or he won’t find them, which he might do if his funds get low. But even if they do, we’re prepared for it.’
    â€˜
We’re
prepared for it?’ he asked, wondering if she were referring to Harry, since it was rare for her to use the marital ‘we’.
    â€˜
I’m
prepared, though I’ve had a little help from the Thought Police.’
    â€˜You mean your mental minders?’ he asked, and they both laughed. ‘Alan again, I presume,’ he added.
    She shrugged. ‘And others.’
    He looked again at the article. ‘It says here that you went to grammar school. Pity those have disappeared. Apparently, we’re the only country in Europe that won’t make room for meritocracy in its state education system.’
    â€˜I suppose you’re going to cite America as a model next.’ Her voice was a little sarcastic, but also weary. ‘Let’s not talk politics now. Come back to bed. I can be late for the River Café. Right now, politics bores me to death.’
    Bored
her
to death? Billings found it hard not to laugh. For almost the first time in his life he was being told to lay off a topic which he himself made it a rule to avoid, though recently he had found it fascinating. His interest in newspapers, never great, was now piqued by the prospect of finding Holly in print.
    Time was, he only scanned the news, diving in, depending on the paper, to find the saleroom report, reviews of new gallery shows, or Daisy Carrera fulminating against the scaffolding still standing on the Albert Memorial. Now he actually read the home news pages, watching as, in the House of Commons, the Tories clung to their single seat majority